Emile M. Cioran
Emile M. Cioran
NationalityRomanian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth8 April 1911
CountryRomania
mind plies intimacy
The only free mind is one that, pure of all intimacy with beings or objects, plies its own vacuity.
ego trying deeper
The more we try to rest ourselves from our Egos, the deeper we sink into it.
believe thinking people
I don’t understand how people can believe in God, even when I myself think of him everyday.
mind wish position
Never to have occasion to take a position, to make up one's mind, or to define oneself — there is no wish I make more often.
book fall writing
To write books is to have a certain relation with original sin. For what is a book if not a loss of innocence, an act of aggression, a repetition of our Fall?
sometimes imagine eternity
Time is heavy sometimes; imagine how heavy eternity must be.
devil acrimony insolence
However much I have frequented the mystics, deep down I have always sided with the Devil; unable to equal him in power, I have tried to be worthy of him, at least, in insolence, acrimony, arbitrariness and caprice.
believe men acting
I have tried to protect myself against men, to react against their madness to discern its source; I have listened and I have seen--and I have been afraid of acting for the same motives or for any motive whatever, of believing in the same ghosts or in any other ghost, of letting myself be engulfed by the same intoxications or by some other... afraid, in short, of raving in common and of expiring in a horde of ecstasies.
sleep tragedy sitting
I lost my sleep, and this is the greatest tragedy that can befall someone. It is much worse than sitting in prison.
suicide people want
When people come to me saying they want to kill themselves, I tell them, “What’s your rush? You can kill yourself any time you like. So calm down. Suicide is a positive act.” And they do calm down.
paradise moments conscious
Not one moment when I have not been conscious of being outside Paradise.
disease reincarnation born
No one recovers from the disease of being born, a deadly wound if there ever was one.
music thinking giving
Thinking should be like musical meditation. Has any philosopher pursued a thought to its limits the way Bach or Beethoven develop and exhaust a musical theme? Even after having read the most profound thinkers, one still feels the need to begin anew. Only music gives definitive answers.
suicide book
A book is a suicide postponed.